Fediverse facts for kids
The fediverse (often called just fedi) is a group of social networking services that can talk to each other. Think of it like different apps that can all share messages and pictures, even if they are not the same app. This is called federation. Users on different websites can send and get updates, multimedia files, and other information across the network. The word fediverse comes from "federation" and "universe" mixed together.
Most fediverse platforms are free and open-source software. This means their code is available for anyone to see and use. They mostly use a special language called ActivityPub to communicate. However, some newer systems like AT Protocol and Nostr have their own separate networks.
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How the Fediverse Works
Most social networks keep all their content on servers owned by one company. But the fediverse is different because it's decentralized. This means anyone can host their own servers, which are called "instances".
Each instance is separate and can have its own rules. But just like you can send an email from Gmail to someone using Outlook, users on different instances can still see and interact with each other's content. For example, if you use one Mastodon instance, you can still see and reply to posts from someone on a different Mastodon instance.
Different types of social networking services can also talk to each other. A user on a microblogging platform like Misskey, for instance, can see and interact with posts from users on Mastodon. Some fediverse networks even let you interact with different kinds of social media from the same platform. For example, a user on a social news instance like Lemmy can interact with posts from a kbin instance (which is similar) and even microblog posts from Mastodon.
A Brief History of the Fediverse
Early Ways of Connecting
The idea of social networks talking to each other existed before the fediverse and the ActivityPub language. One of the first projects to do this was Laconica. It was a microblogging platform that used a language called OpenMicroBlogging to let different installations of the software communicate. Laconica later became StatusNet in 2009, and then joined the GNU social project in 2013.
Over time, the OpenMicroBlogging language showed its limits because it was mostly for simple text messages. So, a new open standard called OStatus was created for microblogging. It combined several other technologies like Salmon, Atom, PubSubHubbub, and ActivityStreams into one language. StatusNet started using OStatus in 2010, and it quickly became the most popular way for federated networks to communicate.
Around the same time, the Diaspora social network started. It used its own special language to connect. To show the differences between these two ways of connecting, people started using the terms the fediverse and the federation more often after 2017. "The fediverse" usually meant networks using the OStatus language, like GNU Social, Mastodon, and Friendica. "The federation" referred to networks using the Diaspora language.
The Rise of ActivityPub
In December 2012, the main GNU social instance, identi.ca, started moving away from OStatus to a new language called Pump.io. This new language was designed to do more than just status updates. It used JSON-LD and a REST API for its messages. Even though Pump.io wasn't as active as OStatus, it helped shape the development of the ActivityPub standard.
In January 2018, the W3C (a group that sets internet standards) officially recommended the ActivityPub language. This new standard aimed to make it easier for different software programs to work together across many servers. It was meant to replace both OStatus and Pump.io. By 2019, most software that used OStatus switched to ActivityPub. Because of this, the term fediverse now mostly refers to the ActivityPub language and the software that uses it.
Growing Popularity
For a long time, not many people used the fediverse. It was often hard to understand, and its technical terms were confusing. Also, big social media companies weren't interested in supporting it because it seemed too costly.
After Elon Musk bought Twitter in November 2022, many users started moving to Mastodon, which is a fediverse server. This made other big social networks like Threads, Tumblr, and Flipboard interested in supporting the ActivityPub language. Flickr also showed interest, but no updates have been given since.
Microblogging Platforms
Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg said in November 2022 that Tumblr was adding support for ActivityPub. This was in response to users complaining about Mastodon being too complicated. For over a year, there wasn't much news, but then he confirmed that a small team was still working on it.
When Threads was launched by Meta in July 2023, they announced plans to support ActivityPub in the future. In December 2023, some Meta employees started testing this feature. A plan was shared in January 2024 showing how ActivityPub would be added to Threads.
In March 2024, Threads launched a test version of fediverse support. This allowed Threads users to see how many fediverse users liked their posts. It also let fediverse users see posts from Threads on their own instances. On April 2, the official Threads account for President Joe Biden started using the fediverse. This made him the first President of the United States to be part of the fediverse.
News Aggregators
In December 2023, Flipboard announced that it had started connecting some of its profiles and magazines to the fediverse. Before this, Flipboard had its own Mastodon instance, flipboard.social, to test how the fediverse worked.
Content Management Systems
Hubzilla is a system that helps you create federated "Hubs." It also connects to ActivityPub. Hubzilla lets you have blogs, articles, calendars, cloud storage, and more. It works with WebDav, CalDAV, CardDAV and has a system for who can access what, which works across different Hubs and fediverse instances.
WordPress has an official plugin that connects WordPress blogs to the fediverse. This means comments on a blog post can be shared with replies on a fediverse instance. Automattic bought this plugin in March 2023, and it became available for all WordPress.com users in October of that year.
Ghost, a blogging platform similar to Substack, announced in April 2024 that they would add fediverse support using ActivityPub. This feature had been highly requested by Ghost users.
Fediverse Software
- ActivityPub, a W3C standard, is the most used language in the fediverse. Some popular fediverse software includes:
- Microblogging (for short updates, like Twitter)
- Mastodon: A popular microblogging social network.
- Misskey: A popular Japanese social network.
- Pleroma: A lightweight microblogging server.
- Snac: A simple, basic ActivityPub server.
- Wafrn: An alternative to Tumblr.
- Social News (for sharing and discussing news, like Reddit)
- Lemmy: An alternative to Reddit.
- kbin: Similar to Lemmy.
- Macroblogging (for longer posts, like Facebook)
- Friendica: An alternative to Facebook.
- Content management system (for building websites and blogs)
- PeerTube: A video streaming service similar to YouTube.
- Pixelfed: An Instagram alternative.
- Matrix (can connect using bridges).
- Microblogging (for short updates, like Twitter)
- Farcaster
- Diaspora
Images for kids
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A widely used symbol for the fediverse.
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A look at common ways to connect and platforms in the fediverse (2023).
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The different platforms of the fediverse, shown like a tree.
See also
In Spanish: Fediverso para niños
